


However Far I Stray

by mangohaz



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Eddie's dead, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Ok lol! I literally was like 'im goin to sleep' and now its 2am and here we are, They're adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 16:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12089088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangohaz/pseuds/mangohaz
Summary: Richie had to leave Eddie behind, physically.





	However Far I Stray

Richie had gone to his apartment not 3 days later, Myra and his mother had been out looking at hypoallergenic flowers for the funeral meaning that Richie could sneak the keys that he had left in his suitcase - which had found itself moved into Richie’s only the evening before - and head out to Maine Airport. Richie was happy to ditch them as soon as he could, the memory of his arm on the sewer floor, so far from the rest of him, topped off with the guilt of leaving the man sprawled out in the dark, in the cold, in the wet, where he would have so hated to spend 2 seconds let alone-. Well, either way, he didn’t want to be in Derry anymore and visiting the apartment so vaguely mentioned in his emails and the stray text, seemed to be simultaneously the best and worst thing he could do in these grief controlled few days where he could feasibly use the manic grief as an excuse for his erratic behaviour before it began to look suspicious to the rest of them, so he went. He fucking _left_ , okay, before anyone was able to say anything or ask anything or question him in any way shape or form.

Upon arrival, he was slightly shocked to find the place looked expensive, the man having mentioned lightly that Myra came from money but to the extent of how much he wasn’t able to understand until he ventured up the steps and, perhaps, continued to invade the man's privacy to a probably illegal level by entering the room with the closed door at the end of the landing, something he could only presume to be because his habit of hiding things that he hadn’t left in adolescence. The room was sparkling, like no one had entered it for years and years. The dip that remained in the mattress, on the right side (he couldn’t have known Richie slept on the left, he just _couldn’t have_ ) as Richie discovered as he peeled back the duvet, removed his old sneakers and got into the made bed, had not yet sprung back. Not thinking about, Richie paused mid thought as his brain naturally led him to the thought of his name. But his name made him think of his face which made him think of his _fucking_ arm and his eyes that looked so dull and how his skin felt so cold when he touched it, it’d never felt cold to him before, even in January. So, not thinking about _him_ had turned out to be a rather exhausting task as he settled down in the bed. Overwhelmed by the smell that had taken over since they’d slept in the same bed last. Not since they were 15 and all that happened was a quick and quiet kiss followed by Eddie falling dead asleep on Richie’s chest halfway through _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ that had been playing on the small TV that sat on Richie’s chest of draws. Back then, Eddie had pretty much smelt like Richie, like fags and sweets and glasses cleaner fluid, not that Richie took notice at 15 he wasn’t fucking _weird_ , only he noticed now the sheets smelt like lemon pledge. Though to be fair to the man, the pillow still smelt exactly like his hair always had, _again_  not that he ever took enough notice of the smaller man for this sort of thing. His eyes remained closed for a few seconds, long enough he could almost imagine there was another dip on the other side, like he could almost imagine the sound of Eddie’s voice calling him for dinner, like he could almost imagine Eds... He opened his eyes, _almost_ wasn’t _could_ , was it?

Richie wasn’t sure what he’d find, what he’d hoped to find in the room or the apartment, or even in the State for that matter but he’d hoped to find something, anything, that told him he hadn’t forgotten, that Myra was some sort of rouse for Richie and Richie alone to figure out, that perhaps he’d just come popping out of the walk in closet and grin gumily at Richie before packing his bags and joining him on a plane right then and there to Beverly Hills to live out their lives in a sort of ‘everyone _knows_ but no one will say it’ situation in Richie’s stupid big home in the Hills. He’d swung his legs off the bed again, starting to feel a little sickly lying where he lay. Looking around the room, it looked like something out of an IKEA showroom, there was nothing personal. Nothing to show it was his.

So, Richie dug. It was what they’d always done, it made sense, to dig deeper than the surface. And he found what he wanted, sort of. The closet had a locked safe sitting on the floor, covered by some old coats. On a whim he tried 0307, a birthday everyone but E, but _him_ seemed happy enough to forget. But there he was, crouched in this closet, the safe’s door popping open to bang against his knee and his heart feeling like it was about to physically force it’s way up his throat, out his mouth to trot across to the safe, stand in the door of it and laugh at him. Cruel bitch, his heart.

His hands, seemingly, couldn’t stop themselves. Pawing everything from the safe out onto the soft beige carpet in front of his knees. He didn’t know he was crying until the fat blobs of it hit the postcard he’d sent in the weeks after he’d left. His thumbs wiped away the wet before it could stain the picture on the front, the Golden Gate Bridge becoming slightly marred under his thumbs. The disfigurement of the image only serving to make him cry more, not daring to flip the card and see what he’d written, to ruin that too. He _knew_ what he’d fucking written but he didn’t need reminding of the the 16 year old who had been so head over heels with the still growth-spurt-less boy back in Derry that he had squished everything he’d done in San Francisco over the week before he wrote it into the top 1/3 of the card so he could express the level to which he missed him for the majority of the paper. Signing the thing ‘Mary’ to deter any anxiousness from Ms. Kaspbrak who had made sure he spent much of his childhood on his knees in the Derry Methodist church. He’d signed the other 15 ‘Mary’ as well until he’d received a phone call one evening that couldn’t have lasted longer than 2 minutes from the first ring to the drone of the receiver, “ _Che. Listen, um, Mom asked to meet ‘Mary’ and I got angry and told her Mary wasn’t real. So you need to stop sending the letters._ ” there had been background noise and Richie hadn’t been sure if it was Ms. Kaspbrak or if it was Bev shouting from her new Honda she’d called to tell him about, “ _Stop calling too, just um, it’s too much right now, Che. I’m sorry. I’m sorry_.” before Richie had got a word in the receiver had clicked and presumably, he’d hurried off to whatever he was being called to do, while Richie had remained stock still, with the phone still to his ear and his mouth still open, ready to burst into a still awful, not that he’d admit it, accent. Richie had stayed by the silly little table, with the big phone still to his ear, for another 20 minutes until his mother had called for him to bring her the new Prosecco she’d bought the day before.

There was the bell off his old bike, Richie had seen the bike in Stan’s mom’s garage when they’d gone over with flowers upon arrival, noticeably bell-less. It was hardly rusted to Richie’s surprise, which meant the scrawny ‘ _R+E_ ’ was still prominently scraped into the top of it in Richie’s childhood handwriting, he’d done it using Bev’s dads penknife that she’d _borrowed_ when they’d tried to go be adventurous, not that that had ever done them any good previously, and go camping. Richie had said that if the bike had gone missing, or the boy had gone missing, whoever took either would know not to mess with the shorter boy because _Richie_ would be on their trail. Ben had whispered to Bev from the back of the bunch that he was _sure_ Rich only wanted to lay his claim to Eddie in whatever way he could, _weirdo_.

After the bell there was 3 inhalers with ‘ _LoVer_ ’ in Richie’s red Sharpie down the side, all of which empty but equally treasured, the writing not even slightly rubbed away.

The final set of items, spread out and laying flat against the floor of the safe, almost as though he’d seen a future when Richie would go scooping through the safe and therefore would miss the papers tied together with a piece of red ribbon accompanied by the one cassette, the sticker on the front coloured in red and ‘ _For My Lovely Eddie!!!_ ’ and encircled by messily drawn hearts. The cassette had 10 songs on, all ranging from awful 80’s music to the sappiest shit he’d ever heard in his life. The back sticker with the songs making his stomach twinge a little at the thought of his 15 year old self doing this in preparation to drop into Eddie’s backpack when he wasn’t paying attention at some point the following day.

“Oh Jesus. _Wouldn’t It Be Nice_... Really? Fucking hell. What a pussy.” His eyes rolled as he continued to read it, “and... Oh yes, _Love Me Tender_ , I mean, of course. What else?” _Lovesong_ by _The Cure_ made two appearances which just seemed like bad planning. But he hadn’t seemed to mind it back then, had kept the thing, obviously. There was a cassette player perched on top of the safe meaning he probably listened to it often, a small comfort, Richie supposed.

The letters were the only thing Richie didn’t know like the back of his hand, all written out in his best handwriting. Addressed to a ‘ _Che_ ’ and signed ‘ _Eddie Spaghetti_ ’ he didn’t read them, well. He read the first paragraph of the top one, it's date marking only a few days after Richie had initially left Derry and the writing feeling like some sort of time travel. Half of the words that needed capitalisation weren’t capitalised, he had misspelt the majority of the longer words as if while he was trying to be as neat as possible he was also rushed to not get caught, “ _bills still having nightmare and his stammar is getting worst. ben says we should all have ‘Psdt’ says that his uncle has it from Korea. his uncle set someone on fire apparantly. if that gives you whatever he has, we should probably have it to i guess. do you get nightmares? i do._ ’ it then delved into another ramble, he wasn’t sure what he had thought 'PSDT' had meant and he was sure Ms. Kaspbrak wouldn’t buy into all that ‘brain shit’. So he stopped reading, the ramble of the numerous and never ending nightmares the teenager was still having a year on making his stomach twist again as he turned the papers on their head before piling the smaller objects on top of it and picking everything up, kicking the door closed with his foot as he walked back out to the bedroom. The thought of leaving a note as he packed the objects (and some of his pyjamas, a college hoodie and the pill box that hadn’t changed since they were kids) into his suitcase, crossed his mind. Perhaps leaving a ‘ _Sorry for your loss_ ’ card in the obviously cleared out safe, only he didn’t. Instead leaning down to put his shoes back on, opened up the bedroom door, handle of the LV case in hand, popping his head through the door directly opposite to confirm his theory that Myra did in fact sleep in another room (the left side of the bed was pushed against the wall, he would have been a fool to think otherwise) before picking up the wheeled thing to stop it bouncing down the stairs (he couldn’t be _sure_ but he was still _sure_ that he wouldn’t like the sound of the little wheels slamming against the glass stairs) before walking back out of the apartment door and toward the lift where a car was waiting for him on the street. He didn’t turn around to give the block one more wistful look, didn’t start crying until he was 2 hours into the plane trip back to LAX. Didn’t _sob_ until he’d locked his own bedroom door, settled his collected items around him on the bed in a semicircle design.

Ben called the next morning and told him Bev had cried for 7 hours when they woke up to realise he’d gone, Ben didn’t sound angry, per se, more sad for him. Which he didn’t like. Bill had texted that he was sorry and that he would be by as soon as he could. Bev showed up, of her own accord, without warning and significantly more pregnant than she had been the last time he saw her, she had a lot of luggage with her too, told him, as they sat on the white couch in his open plan living room, that she was having a boy and was going to call him Eddie Jr. She hadn’t questioned why he was in a College sweater that didn’t belong to him, or why it kind of looked like he’d showered in it, some thing she felt she didn’t need to know especially if he didn’t need to tell. It had taken only 2 glasses of red wine for Richie to fall against her shoulder, only when it began to feel wet did she realise he wasn’t asleep.

“They found him, you know, someone found him and his Ma buried him on the family plot, with his Dad.”

Richie didn’t have it in him to respond, not really. He’d known. Not because everyone _but_ him had shown up to the funeral but because Eddie had appeared in all his dreams (single armed) every night, up until 2 months previous, presumably the night after he’d been found, to tell him he’d be leaving him be now, Richie had told him not to go. That even if he was dreaming he knew he was there. Eddie had smiled, the same smile as when he was younger, not the rather tired and jaded one he’d been sporting on that last day and the week or so previous, his not saying anything had given Richie the opportunity to continue onward, begging him to stay.

“ _I dunno what I’m gunna do without you, even dream you, I need you, even dream you, please Eddie, please, just my dreams Eds, I know you're gone, just my dreams, please, I fucking love you, Eds. I love you so fuc-._ ”

The smile turned slightly grim, slightly bitter, his eyes still sparkled, though, with the same humour of 13 year old him dancing in them, “ _Don’t call me that, you old idiot._ ” And that, Richie supposed, was that

He didn’t dream anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> deadass? I shouldn't have done this but i literally am not going to read this myself so HOPEFULLY and sweet jiminy christ its a big hope, one of y'all will read it and perhaps... think its not all that shite? idk. ALSO, feels important to mention that this is set on like the 2017 movie time line i guess so 27 years later than the film not that its entirely obvious of the time. ALSO ALSO, i havent read the book which u can probably tell lol but it vaguely strays from what ive seen on the character wikis, sorry. its my first day of school tomo so, this is just. God im sorry, not even cuz of the context of it just like. That i thought posting this was like... ok. Sorry ok, Enjoy.


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